International and Security Affairs Centre
9th School of Security Sector Reform,
Belgrade, April 23, 2007
Opening Lecture by
Ambassador Kim Traavik,
Permanent Representative of Norway on the North Atlantic Council
Why is Security Sector Reform Important? A Global Perspective and the Case of Serbia
Security sector reform is a high priority in many countries, and rightly so. But it would be hard to think of another country for which security sector reform is more directly linked to fundamental national aspirations than it is for Serbia.
While much hard work also remains, there can be no doubt that
Serbia in recent years has come a long way, particularly in the area of defence reforms.
That is as it should be. Fundamental and comprehensive reform of the entire security system is a crucial part of the democratic reforms and good governance agenda, and as such needs to be internalised by political parties across the political spectrum.
In addition, clearly, a determined and sustained continuation of the process of security sector reform is a prerequisite for Serbia’s integration into the Euro-Atlantic family of democratic nations. That of course applies equally to other countries of South Eastern Europe and to the region as such.
This is why; it seems to me, the EU and NATO have a right to be stringent in their demands and rigorous in monitoring performance in the field of security sector reform. The countries of the Western Balkans, including Serbia, are – after all – not mere “third countries”, but prospective members.
Although the threat of open conflict in this part of Europe has significantly receded, effective Security Sector Reform across the region is needed as much as ever. Unreformed security institutions can obstruct the progress of reform, block regional cooperation, and hence undermine stability.
Accordingly, effective security sector reform is and has to be a prerequisite for eventual accession to the EU and NATO. But it also constitutes a pivotal contribution to stability in the region. In other words, failure of security sector reform in one Western Balkans country can have direct implications for security in the others.
For example, integrated border management presupposes the cooperation of those responsible on each side of the border in order to be effective. And the fight against organized crime, including trafficking in humans and drugs, requires a level of cooperation between the police forces of the region that matches the proven efficiency of cooperation between transnational gangs of extremely professional criminals.
In the Norwegian view – and this is a view broadly shared by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – Serbia belongs in the Euro-Atlantic community of democratic nations. There certainly is no doubt in our minds about the Euro-Atlantic destiny of this country.
This would be good for Serbia and good for the Euro-Atlantic community. With its well-educated population base Serbia is capable of making increasingly important contributions, not only to regional security and stability, but also to cooperation in the wider international arena, including participation in NATO-led, UN-mandated peace operations.
In short, the Euro-Atlantic community needs Serbia just as much as Serbia needs the Euro-Atlantic community. In future we should, and I have no doubt will, become even closer partners than we are today.
This is one of the reasons why we in Norway, with our historically close ties of friendship to Serbia, have actively supported security sector reform in this country ever since the fall of the Milosevic regime.
We do this bilaterally as well as in cooperation with other NATO Allies. And we support Serbia’s own efforts through organisations such as the OSCE, particularly in areas such as police and judiciary reform. Bilaterally, apart from a number of defence reform projects, twinning programs involving the polices forces of Norway and Serbia, respectively, have been particularly productive.
My point is that effective security sector reform can of course not be limited to the military security establishment. It also has an important civilian dimension. Practitioners of security sector reform as well as their political lords and masters need to understand both aspects. And there needs to be coherence and coordination in the implementation of projects and programs on each side of the divide.
Among the most important parts of the civil dimension are reform and restructuring of police, the courts and the penal system, interior forces, border guards and customs services, as well as the parliamentary, judicial, and administrative structures responsible for the democratic control and oversight of these institutions.
This is why during my tenure as Chair of the Stability Pact’s Security Working Table, in addition to defence reform, we also promoted reform and regional cooperation in areas such as illegal migration, integrated border management, transborder organized crime, and trafficking in humans and other forms of trafficking.
But above all there was focus on police reform, as an essential component of the broader democratic reform process. A Police Training and Cooperation Initiative was set up, with training activities for police officials from all the countries of the region. And the establishment of the South East Europe Police Forum took place during my watch as chair of the Security Working Table. The Forum remains a useful framework for police professionals from across the region to address common challenges.
Ladies and gentlemen,
After the Cold War three international developments in particular have reshaped our thinking about the need for security sector reform.
First, with the disappearance of the constraints of the East-West division, a number of brutal and bloody armed conflicts erupted in the Third World.
As a result, the link between security and development became very clear. Security problems clearly blocked economic and social development. As a result, there was a common realization among donors and recipients that security and stability were prerequisites for successful development programs.
Hence, agreement emerged in the donor community, as well as in the UN context, that state and non-state armed groups and organisations had to be brought under control if development was to take place.
One way to achieve this was by means of so-called Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (or DDR) Programs aiming to disarm armed groups, demobilise their members, and reintegrate them into civilian life.
Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programs are challenging to launch and even more challenging to implement. Even so, positive results have been achieved in a number of post-conflict situations, including in Africa. Currently, DDR is an essential ingredient of the effort to stabilize and pave the way for reconstruction and development in Afghanistan.
Second, the Cold War left the former Warsaw Pact countries and the former Yugoslavia with a burdensome legacy of excessively large, obsolete, and costly security structures that needed to be reshaped and cut down to size.
In the early nineties, Eastern European countries started reform programs aiming at modernisation and democratic control of the armed forces. These efforts produced remarkably quick political results.
By the end of the nineties Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had qualified for NATO membership, and by 2004 the three Baltic countries, as well as Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Slovenia followed suit.
There is an important historical lesson here. Security Sector Reform is frequently slow and painful. In Serbia you know this. But it is indispensable for domestic as well as foreign policy reasons. And as illustrated by the case of NATO’s ten new nations, it can be a fast-track to the achievement of high-priority national objectives.
Obviously defence reform happened not only in the former Warsaw Pact and Communist countries. With the Soviet threat gone, NATO’s “old” members, too, had to rethink their security posture and strategies. My own country is a case in point.
In the nineties, we carried out a radical downsizing and reorganization of our armed forces. In essence, we made them more expeditionary and better suited to participate in international operations, side by side with our Allies and partners. Interoperability was an important objective.
The process was not easy. It triggered widespread opposition, particularly in local communities where the military had traditionally been the main source of employment. But there really was no alternative. Even a rich country like ours could no longer afford the sort of large mobilisation forces we had relied upon in the days of East-West confrontation. And forces such as these were no longer usable against new challenges and threats.
Third, the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington also had a profound impact on our thinking about security.
The post 9-11 security situation has sped up the transformation of military forces. Faced with new global security challenges, the scourge of terrorist attacks and asymmetric threats, most countries in the Euro-Atlantic area realised that large, territorial defence structures were no longer up to the task.
In the post 9-11 world, relevance and effectiveness is no longer determined by the size of military, but by the ability to react swiftly, to act on intelligence, to interact with the forces of other nations, and to be able to deploy quickly to far-flung areas where threats may arise, and – last but not least – to ensure seamless cooperation between the military and civilian structures.
The complex realities facing modern-day crisis management operations necessitate multi-dimensional responses which include not only military but also civilian means. Civilian aspects of international crisis management are increasingly regarded as integral parts of crisis management operations.
This has created an increased demand for civilian crisis response capabilities to which Norway has responded inter alia by creating rapid reaction teams of experts in priority areas. We have pools of police, legal and defence experts, as well as advisers on democracy-building and human rights. These experts are deployed, sometimes at very short notice, in international peace operations as well as to bilateral security sector reform programs.
Security sector reform is a broad and many-faceted concept. But without any presumption of exhaustiveness, let me highlight some general aspects which, it seems to me, are particularly important in the context of any well-functioning security sector reform program.
First, and above all, there has to be local ownership.
Cooperation between international donors and recipients has to be real cooperation, with the latter in the driver’s seat. International donors can only support programmes which are genuinely wanted by recipients.
Accordingly there must be real engagement and commitment as well as a clear set of priorities on the part of recipient governments. And political commitment has to be generated across the board. It is not enough that defence ministries or foreign ministries push security sector reform. Unless they receive full backing from the offices of the president and the prime minister as well as the ministry of finance, the momentum of will not be sustained.
Assuring local ownership means setting priorities but also requires commitment to capacity-building in government: The pace of the development of general administrative and managerial skills within state institutions obviously has a fundamental bearing on the speed and effectiveness of security sector reform.
Second, in order to be effective, security sector reform must be set firmly and squarely within the broader democratic governance agenda of the country in question. Above all, reform programs need to be backed by programs to enhance transparency and accountability.
This is why the parliamentary dimension of security sector reform is so important. Legislative oversight is above all needed in the field of armed forces and security services.
But the security sector reform agenda extends also into the remit of committees on foreign affairs, interior, justice, human rights, social and economic policy. Hence, training of parliamentarians, committee staffers, and political party advisers in these fields, too, is crucial.
Equally there is a need to provide for training of civil society activists, academics and journalists in issues related to security sector reform. Strengthening the political oversight function clearly also requires the formation of a wider non-governmental community of security experts.
Third, in order for security sector reform to be effective, national programmes need to be supplemented with regional cooperation. A regional dimension is an important part of the broader effort.
I am aware that this is not necessarily self-evident in the Western Balkans, where lingering mutual mistrust and unreconciled tensions frequently produce instinctive aversion to being designated as a region at all.
And there is no denying that at least some of the frameworks for regional cooperation in the Western Balkans from an overall point of view have been under-achievers.
But at the same time many of the challenges facing the countries of the region – be it illegal migration, organized crime, or border management – are regional in character and as such would benefit from a regional approach.
Furthermore, regional frameworks such as the now defunct Stability Pact and its successor the Regional Cooperation Council are useful as vehicles for confidence-building. They facilitate networking between key institutions and individuals across the region, and they are fora for peer review and presentation of best practices in the area of security sector reform.
With time regional cooperation can be of more direct and tangible use also in this region, just as it has been in others. The Nordic countries are a case in point. Over the last several years Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have built a wide-ranging cooperation in areas related to international peace operations.
This includes joint participation in operations, joint training, and an elaborate division of responsibilities for various aspects of training. In addition the two EU members Sweden and Finland have formed, together with non-EU member Norway, an EU Battle Group to be used as a rapid-reaction contribution to international peace operations.
And fourth, in order for donor community support to security sector reform to be effective, it is essential to ensure coherence and coordination between international actors such as the UN, EU, NATO, and the OSCE.
This is important not just for avoiding wasteful duplication of efforts, but also from the point of view of recipient governments. Lack of coordination, not to mention outright competition, between international donors poses unwelcome and unnecessary strains on weak states with limited capacities and human resources.
In the concluding part of my presentation I’d like to revert to the question of why security sector reform is so important for Serbia.
My perspective on this takes as its point of departure your country’s history in the last fifteen years, and in particular the fact that Serbia lost ten years of progress and development during the Milosevic era, at a time when other countries of the region built market economies and thus paved the way for sustained economic growth.
Despite having the region’s best educated population and some of its most advanced industries, Serbia lost out on development because nationalism gained the upper hand in domestic politics. This was of course no accident or coincidence. It was the result of deliberate political choices.
But now the forces of reform and democracy in Serbia are in the process of changing all that. And security sector reform is a crucial part of the development of the new Serbia. While Serbia’s friends in the International Community remain ready to assist, this is of course a job that can only be done by Serbs for Serbia.
Accordingly, we sincerely hope that your next government will push the security sector reform agenda with at least as much determination as the previous one. For Serbia’s international partners, it is essential that the entire Serbian government stands firmly behind the activities we as donors are invited to support.
Equally it is essential that Serbia’s armed forces remain firmly committed to the Security Sector Reform agenda.
As in most other countries, my own included, it is probably not unfair to say that the Serb government’s early efforts to promote defence reform met with a certain lack of enthusiasm on the part of many in the military establishment.
I personally recall meetings with successive defence ministers between 2002 and 2004 which left me with the distinct impression that Serbia’s political leaders had a hard time convincing army brass of the need for security sector reform.
Hopefully Serbia’s armed forces have by now realised that they need to be modernised, that they need to be adapted to new security challenges, that they need to make better and more effective use of tax payers’ money, and that there needs to be democratic, civilian oversight and control.
This is the key to restoring pride in Serbia’s armed forces as an institution. In the process the military will also become a more useful instrument for Serbia’s elected leaders, for example as an active contributor – alongside the armed forces of other democratic nations - to international peace operations and in the fight against terrorism.
To that end it is necessary, among other things, to develop a new strategic doctrine, to restructure the military organisation, and above all to downsize the armed forces.
Serbia is of course not the only country going through this process. All countries in the region are undergoing defence reform, and all are downsizing. Downsizing does not necessarily weaken armed forces, but serves to adapt the military organisation to the present security threats and budgetary constraints. Downsizing also should lead to a clearer focus on those capacities the country really needs and which it can afford.
Ever since the fall of the year 2000, Norway has promoted security sector reform in parallel with Euro-Atlantic integration for Serbia. The two are separate but mutually reinforcing tracks.
Let me mention a few of the defence reform projects Norway has supported, through NATO or bilaterally, to this end.
First, back in 2003 we took an initiative that resulted in the establishment of NATO’s Tailored Cooperation Program with Serbia’s armed forces. This program has been an important instrument for preparing Serbia for PfP membership.
Second, as NATO’s Contact Point Embassy in Belgrade from late 2004 through 2006, we cooperated actively with Serb authorities in support of the development of Serbia’s new Strategic Defence Review, which outlines the role and organisation of your Army.
Our responsibility as Contact Point Embassy provided us with a unique opportunity to cooperate closely and constructively with Serb authorities, not least the Defence Ministry, and to promote progress in Serbia’s relations with NATO.
The fact that the end of our tenure as Contact Point Embassy coincided with the Riga Summit invitation to Serbia and its neighbours Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace, was a cause for intense gratification on our part.
Third, in close cooperation with Serbia’s Ministry of Defence, we contributed in 2005 to the establishment of the NATO-Serbia Defence Reform Group.
This group has been a useful framework for Serbia-NATO direct interaction on security sector reform, particularly prior to Serbia’s accession to the Partnership for Peace, which means that your country has moved on to a formal, structured partnership with NATO. But the Defence Reform Group should continue to serve a useful purpose also in the present stage of NATO-Serbia cooperation.
Fourth, we have been instrumental in setting up a retraining program for redundant military personnel, and we remain lead nation of the NATO Trust Fund established for this purpose.
It is of course crucially important to allay and mitigate to the extent possible the economic and social hardship that sometimes accompany security sector reform programmes, in this case downsizing of armed forces.
Fifth, the Norwegian and Serb militaries have been working closely together to pave the way for the inclusion of a Serb medical unit in the Norwegian contingent of the International Security Assistance (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
This would be a small, but highly significant first contribution by Serbia to a NATO-led international operation, and as such yet another milestone in the evolution of the relationship.
And sixth, we wish to support actively and concretely Serbia’s planned contribution to reinforcing the medical capacity of United Nations peace operations.
This would be a welcome contribution on the part of Serbia in an area in which it is particularly needed. As such it is a clear indication that Serbia stands ready to take its share of the responsibility for maintaining international peace and security.
Most of the projects that I have referred to were launched during my country’s tenure as NATO Contact Point Embassy here in Belgrade, which came to an end several months ago. The baton has now been passed on to Italy, which I am confident will do a terrific job in promoting NATO-Serbia relations.
But that does not mean Norway will no longer be engaged. On the contrary, security sector reform will remain a key part of our broader bilateral cooperation with Serbia. And we will continue to set aside substantial resources to Security Sector Reform in Serbia.
Back in 2003, Serbia for the first time expressed the wish to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace.
Norway and several other Allies worked very hard in support of that request. Yet it took more than three years before it was granted. The reason was of course not Serbia’s record in security sector reform, in which most Allies felt a good beginning had been made.
Rather, as you are well aware, the main obstacle was the issue of Serbia’s cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. This is, of course, a serious issue. And while it is true that much has been done by Serbia in recent years, it is an issue which has yet to be definitely resolved.
Norway stood – and still stands - firmly behind the insistence of the Euro-Atlantic community on full cooperation with the Tribunal. But we took the view that Serbia’s cooperation could be more effectively promoted from within; that is to say, in the context of a more structured relationship in the framework of the Partnership for Peace.
We also believed – and continue to believe - that NATO must have a regional approach to its relations with the countries of the Western Balkans. No single country should be left outside structured cooperation with NATO. No single country should be left behind. Therefore, we wanted Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro to join the Partnership for Peace together.
For a long time, these views were controversial at NATO. In the end, however, at Riga all Allies agreed that the Alliance’s relations with Serbia, and indeed political developments within Serbia, would be best served if Serbia were invited to join the Partnership for Peace.
But that does not mean that the ICTY issue has gone away. It will not go away until Serbia makes it go away. Only then will Serbia be in a position to make the most of its Partnership for Peace membership. And only then will she be able to move ahead on the path to Euro-Atlantic integration.
Against this backdrop, Serbia’s new government should act quickly and decisively in order to defuse the ICTY issue. There is growing impatience in the international community. The new government should also take several other steps that are required to fully realise the potential for cooperation in the PfP framework.
For example, it should act briskly to approve Serbia’s PfP Presentation Document, finalise the Security Agreement, and start practical cooperation on further defence reforms and interoperability, as well as cooperation in international peace and stability operations.
In a few months’ time, we would like to see Serbia taking part in an Individual Partnership Assistance Program, as most of your neighbours are already doing. And with sustained progress in fulfilling the criteria, I am sure you will soon be able to advance to even higher levels of cooperation with NATO, if you so wish. That is of course entirely up to Serbia.
Having said that, we in Norway certainly hope to see a continuing political commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration in Serbia. We would like to see as an active partner and, eventually, as an Ally. We firmly believe that both NATO and EU membership can be achieved. But it will of course require political determination and much hard work. And it will take time.
The outcome of the consultations on Kosovo currently taking place at the United Nations Security Council is not yet known. But whatever the outcome will be, we sincerely hope it will not have a lasting negative impact on Serbia’s relations with the Euro-Atlantic community, including NATO, or on the process of security sector reform.
That would entail the risk of a serious setback in Serbia’s relationship with the Euro-Atlantic community, which has come far in recent years, but which still has a significant untapped potential, and which is so important to both sides. We would hate to see Serbia lose any more time than she already did during the Milosevic years.